Note the accompanying commentary, which claims that just by watching this magical documentary, all our knowledge about ancient religion and mythology will melt away, and suddenly we will become believers in the historical Jesus Christ:

Quote:

This video is a pre­sen­ta­tion of the evi­dence for the exis­tence of Jesus. It uses only non-bi­blical sources and goes th­rough the skep­tical ar­gu­ments for each claim. It will be sur­pri­sing for some to see how much evi­dence for the his­to­ri­city of Jesus there ac­tu­ally is, in fact there is more evi­dence for Jesus' exis­tence, as you will see, than there is for most of the pro­mi­nent fi­gures in an­cient his­tory. Note: Wat­ching this video will take away your abi­lity to claim ho­nestly that Jesus was a myth.

I highly doubt it. On the contrary, the Lost Gospels - about which I've known for some 25 or more years - demonstrate even more clearly that we are discussing a mythical figure, much like the composite character of Hermes Trismegistus, who was the subject of extensive forgeries over a period of centuries, the pseudepigraphical "author" of Hermetic literature actually composed by others, "the so-called Hermetica, treatises composed in Roman Egypt and attributed to the god Hermes Trismegistus and to other members of his circle, such as Asclepius." (Fowden, Garth, The Egyptian Hermes, xxi.) This pseudepigraphical Hermes Trismegistus tradition represents a clear precedent for the Christian effort, including the various apocryphal texts. In fact, there is evidence that Hermetic texts were used in the creation of Christianity.

Moreover, these lost gospels contain much supernatural material that makes the Christ character appear even more cartoonish and unrealistic. Do those who think the apocryphal gospels add to our knowledge about a "historical" Jesus believe that when he was a child he blinded and murdered several people, including other children, as he is represented in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas as having done? Or how about Jesus instantly killing a boy for bumping into him?

If we can dismiss these violent and murderous episodes as fiction, how much more of the stories about Jesus can we likewise dismiss as fiction? If we admit that some of these apocryphal texts are forged, should we not look with a jaundiced eye at the other texts as well, including Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?

As concerns what the priest in the video states, in the first place, I've been aware of the gospels for four to five decades and have been studying them in their original languages since before this guy ever read them. Secondly, the fact he loved John's Gospel the most is interesting, in consideration of the fact that it is so patently mystical, allegorical and mythical, and was widely attacked and slated to be removed from the canon.

The priestly commentator wonders why "we" don't know about these numerous apocryphal texts, which include gospels, apocalypses and others. Well, the unwashed masses may not know about these texts, but, again, I was reading them before he had even read the canonical gospels. (Amazing how people think that something just happened because they just discovered it.) So far, I see nothing new here that would magically remove all my knowledge about Christian origins and pre-Christian mythological parallels.

Again, these texts were part of a tradition revolving around "Jesus Christ" in the same manner as the longstanding tradition of forging texts in the name of "Hermes Trismegistus." The reason so many of these texts were prevented from being canonical is because they contain much ridiculous and patently mythical material that would cast doubt upon the veracity of the canonical gospels. Indeed, Luke's prologue acknowledges "many" of these texts and dismisses them - demonstrating the lateness of his own writing.

Here's a link with ranting about us unbelieving sinners - note it credits "thedevineevidence.com" (that misspelling of "divine" is annoying and revealing about the unscholarly and sloppy creators of the site).

While doing a search, I came across the following video, apparently posted by the same person, making the same claim - evidently it is this video that's the subject of the claim above that includes this sentence: "Note: Wat­ching this video will take away your abi­lity to claim ho­nestly that Jesus was a myth." Note also my images here and the absurd claim that casting doubt on Christ's historicity is "new."

In the meanwhile, the bulk of the evidence continues to point to the "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament being as mythical as the Greek son of God Hercules. But the fact that so many have to "fight back" means that the idea of Jesus as myth has reached critical mass.

Have fun picking these apart!

_________________Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

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